A new launch vehicle has been chosen -- and it looks like we are eight years from flight.

Lockheed Martin Corp. won a multibillion-dollar contract yesterday to build a vehicle to replace NASA's space shuttles, put a human on the moon for the first time since 1972 and be the precursor to a manned spaceship to Mars.

The award marks NASA's most concrete step to fulfill President Bush's two-year-old, $230 billion promise that the space agency would return astronauts to the moon and restore excitement about space exploration. NASA has planned to replace the shuttles since the mid-1980s and has spent almost $5 billion to do so -- with little success so far.

"It's just thrilling, for all of us," said Skip Hatfield, NASA's project manager. The vehicle, known as Orion, is the embodiment of the "very future of human space flight," he said.

Orion will look somewhat like the three-man Apollo command module but will carry as many as six astronauts. Like the shuttle, Orion will be able to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station.

Orion is expected to make its first manned flight by 2014, four years after NASA's three operating shuttles are retired. NASA said it hopes for a moon landing by 2020.

Unlike the shuttle, which lands like an airplane on a runway, Orion will descend with the aid of a parachute to landings in the ocean or on land. NASA plans to build two of the vehicles, one for manned flight and the other for unmanned. After judging how often the spaceships can be reused, the agency will decide how many more to buy, Hatfield said.

Since this part of Houston is, in many ways, a company town, I'm particularly gratified to see that so many friends now have some idea of where the space agency is headed next.

First, back to the moon.
Next, on to Mars. . . and beyond.

Posted by: Greg at 02:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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